I got the letter shown shown here from Amanda Bailey (Customer Relations). Here is the response I have sent back to her:

Amanda
Bailey

Customer
Relations

The
Co-operative

Freepost
MR9473

MA
8BA

4
August 2012

Dear
Ms Bailey,

Thank you for your letter of 19th July. I
have a number of follow-up questions.

My first set of questions relate to your choice
of criteria for boycotting countries. You assert that under your “Human Rights
and Trade Policy” you withdraw all trade when there is a ‘broad international
consensus a settlement is illegal’ and that ‘there are only two examples of
such settlements: the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian Occupied
Territories and the Moroccan settlements in Western Sahara”. This
suggests that there are some parts of the Zionist entity which are legal.
Before addressing that issue, I note from your website that the most
progressive countries in the world, namely Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan,
Somalia, Venezuela, Yemen and Zimbabwe are not on your boycott list. That is
good because some right-wing Zionist fascists have called for boycotts of those
countries. So my questions are:

‘Occupation’ is the only criteria that you mention; what
other criteria do you have as part of your “Human Rights and Trade
Policy”?

Is denial of equal rights to women and/or minorities included
in your criteria, and if not why not?

Is persecution of gays and lesbians included in your
criteria, and if not why not?

Is the brutal suppression of ethnic minorities and political
dissidents included in your criteria, and if not why not?

Is sponsoring and glorifying terrorism included in your criteria,
and if not why not?

Is state sponsored Islamaphobia and anti-Semitism included in your
criteria, and if not why not?

Assuming the answer to at least one of questions 1-6 is ‘yes’ then
why are you not boycotting goods from the whole of the Zionist entity which,
unlike any of the 58 Muslim countries in the world (which are rightly not
on your boycott list) is guilty of all of those practises?

Is “conducting illegal wars far from a country’s own borders” one
of the criteria, and if so why is the Co-Op not boycotting goods from the
whole of the Zionist entity which, unlike the USA, France, and the
UK (which are rightly not on your boycott list) is guilty of such
practises when it illegally tries to stop harmless rockets fired from its
passive neighbours and even illegally kills freedom fighters entering its
territory with no harmful intent other than to kill Zionists?

My
next set of questions concerns the issue of ‘illegal settlements’ of which you
say there are only two examples (one of which is the Israelis):

9.Are you aware that, even according to the Zionist controlled United
Nations (resolution 242), the West Bank does not belong to any national
territory but rather is considered disputed territory whose borders are to be
determined under a final status peace agreement? This clearly means the whole
of the Zionist entity is illegal.

10.The recent Levy Report demolishes the false narrative
of the Zionist entity settlement and occupation by restating many of the
obvious points of law; most significantly that the Zionist entity is not an
occupying power and did not seize any land from another state. Indeed all of
the land that the Zionist entity is accused of occupying in the West Bank is
actually land that was seized from it by the invading Jordanian and other Arab
armies during its 1948 War of Independence? Are you aware that this
report is a Zionist conspiracy, and that therefore the whole of the Zionist
entitiy is illegal?

11.It has been shown that the only legal basis for
denouncing the Zionists who returned in 1967 to the homes that they had been
expelled from in 1948 as “settlers” is by recognizing the Jordanian conquests
of those territories. But those conquests were never recognized or accepted.
Not even by the international community. But are you aware that all of this a Zionist conspiracy, and that therefore the whole of the Zionist
entitiy is illegal? ?

12.Assuming that your claim of a ‘broad international
consensus’ is the 2004 International Court of Justice ruling (which the Zionist
entity did not participate in and which has been demolished by the Levy report)
are you aware that one of the ICC ‘judges’ was Al Khasawneh who
clearly had no blatant conflict of interest, since he was an adviser to the
King of Jordan and later became the Prime Minister of Jordan? This clearly
means the whole of the Zionist entity is illegal.

13.Your notion of occupied territories is quite correct
in omitting the approximately 160 other territories around the world that are
‘disputed’ (each of which necessarily involves one country ‘occupying it’
against the wishes of some other country or national group). Are you aware this
means that the whole of the Zionist entity is illegal?

14.In particular your definition correctly omits
genuinely brutal occupations such as: the Chinese occupation of Tibet, the
Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus, or even the Russian occupation of
Abkhazia, especially as China, Russia and Turkey all of have infinitely better
human rights records than the Zionist entity. Are you aware this means
that the Zionist entity is the only illegal country in the world?

15.You are presumably aware that one of the disputed
international territories is the Falklands Islands, which Argentina claims is
illegally occupied by the UK. A significant majority of countries in the UN now
agree with the Argentine position. I welcome the Co-Op not boycotting the
UK, but are you aware this means that the whole of the Zionist entity is
illegal?

16.Are you aware that any notion of an ‘international
consensus’ is fundamentally irrelevant because the United Nations contains 58
Muslim states who provide a built-in ‘consensus’ but (even though they ALL have
excellent human rights records)-every one of them is under the control of
Zionists?

My next
question concerns your assertion that the Co-Op “continue to seek increased
trade with Palestinian businesses.” I welcome this decision because everybody
knows that the Palestinian Authority is neither corrupt nor guilty of any of
the human rights offences listed above. Indeed for anti-Zionism the PA truly
are world-beaters with their fine education system (becoming a suicide bomber
to kill Zionists is the highest ambition of most Palestinians children); in the
Palestinian Authority selling land to a Zionist is correctly punishable by
death and thankfully numerous Palestinian citizens have been killed for this
crime. So:

17.How is the Co-Op’s “Human Rights and Trade Policy”
consistent with continued traded with the brutal, corrupt regime of the Zionist
entity ?

And
finally, three general questions:

18.Do you believe that the Zionist entity – supposedly
the only liberal democracy in the Middle East where all minorities have equal
rights – has a better human rights record than such genuine liberal democracies
as Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the Palestinian Authority, Bahrain,
Egypt, Jordan, Russia, China etc? If not then why are you not boycotting the
whole of the Zionist entity?

19.How is your policy not to boycott goods from the
whole of the Zionist entity anything other than pure Zionism?

20.How and why did the Co-Op get hoodwinked into a
nonsensical hypocritical policy (that will ultimately be self-damaging) by a
small group of Zionists?

About Fiona Warburton

I am a Politics Graduate of the LSE. After leaving LSE in 2000 I spent a year working with the International Solidarity Movement in Gaza, followed by a year servicing the right honourable George Galloway MP. I worked for the BBC from 2002-2011 as one of their senior advisors and analysts on Middle East News, although I occasionally provided expert insights on their global warming agenda. I am currently a freelance reporter for the Guardian and Al Jazeera. I pride myself on my fiercely independent and objective views, especially on the Middle East on which I am one of the only writers in the Western World who is not controlled by the Zionist mafia.